DESI
“Are you hurt?”
She had to be in shock. Surely, there was a delayed reaction. Scout had just stabbed a man and then pushed a chair onto his head. His guts were splattered all over her face. And yet, here she was, wrapped tightly in my arms, asking me if I was alright.
“No. Do you want to talk about what just happened?”
“He was going to hurt you. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Well, thank you.” I smiled and kissed her.
“What do we do now?” she asked, nodding to Yorick’s body. “Do we have to bury it?”
“No. They prefer for the bodies to be discovered. So they can boast about how they got the job done.” I waved it off. “It’s a whole thing. Office politics, all that. Come on.”
“You aren’t afraid of getting caught? What about fingerprints?” Scout gulped, and her eyes widened. “Or steps? My heel!”
Ah, there it was. The panic I’d been waiting for.
“Scout.” She’d begun to pace, and I caught her, holding firmly to her upper arms. “It’s fine. The police aren’t going to investigate this.”
“How do you know? Why wouldn’t they?”
“Because the police are in my client’s pockets. They are going to find him, report the death, and rule it an accident. Actually”—I glanced at the limp body— “you smashing his head in with the chair helps that. He was drunk, fell, and reached for the chair. It tumbled and squished him.”
“Desi.” She blinked. “I stabbed him.”
“Yorick’s head was knocked in. I’ll make sure to tell my client that, and when it comes out in the paper, I’ll show you. This isn’t my first rodeo.”
“Well, it’s mine!” She pointed to herself.
I noted that she hadn’t added anything else.
Had I sparked something deep and dark inside her? Would this benefit me in more ways than one? I stared at her, gorgeous as usual, pacing. The blood and brain matter she was covered in only made her more attractive to me. Was my vampirism starting to reveal itself early?
In six months, I’d be drinking blood and craving it daily. Up until now, I’d never thought about it one way or the other, but now… I wanted to lick every last drop off of her naked body, right here, right now.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, bringing my mind back to the room.
“I… I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but this is the sexiest I’ve ever seen you.”
She looked down at herself for the first time, seeming to only now realize she was covered in blood. “Really?”
“You don’t know how much I’ve worried that you’d run and never speak to me again once you found out about my job. Tonight was a test. Are you going to leave me?”
“No? Why would I?”
“Because… I kill people…”
“Am I any different?”
I pulled her deeper into my embrace. Our hearts were as one, beating powerfully, trying to call to each other.
“Desi, I don’t know what it is about you, but something in me has changed. I’ve lived my entire life laying low, making no real attachments to anything, but then I found you, and now…” She sighed. “It sounds insane. I’m lovesick.”
“I feel the same. Like I’d been drifting through life for so long and then suddenly I didn’t want to do that anymore. I wanted to do more, be more, but if it meant losing you, I’d give it all up to get you to stay.”
“Exactly. If this”—she motioned to Yorick— “is what it means to be with you, then I guess it is what it is. He was a bad guy. He said so himself.”
